Brief Admission by Self-Referral: A 4-Year Follow-Up on Utilisation Patterns and Experiences.
Daiva Daukantaitė, Rose-Marie Lindkvist, Reid Lantto and 1 others
PMID 40635140WHAT IT FOUND
Brief admission use dropped for most participants over four years, leaving only eight who used it consistently.
These high users had worse self-care but rated the service highest. Some were refused emergency care because they held a brief admission contract.
Key findings
01Brief admission usage stabilised at an average of 3 to 4 days per six-month period after an initial drop.
02Only eight participants maintained high usage over four years; they reported the most self-care difficulties but the highest satisfaction.
03Some participants were denied emergency psychiatric care because they had a brief admission contract, leading some to terminate it.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The sample is small, with only 62 participants completing the follow-up out of 125 originally recruited. Attrition was high, with 19 participants dropping out during the study due to death, relocation, or withdrawal. The survey was not pre-tested with participants. Cluster analysis on this small sample has low statistical power, so differences between groups may be unstable. Qualitative data provided only a partial understanding of why some people did not use the service.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. Funding came from the Swedish Research Council, Mats Paulsson’s foundation, and Swedish governmental funding of clinical research.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the high satisfaction among the eight consistent users as proof that brief admission improves outcomes for the wider group. Most participants used the service infrequently or not at all, and the study did not compare their long-term health against those who did not use it.